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Bradley Manning Is My Son

A black kid got shot for wearing a hoody and President Obama said, “My son would look like Trayvon Martin.” My son would not look like Bradley Manning, who’s only five feet tall. But for rhetorical purposes, let me call him my son.

The president reached down and lifted up a dead young black man. Not a great move, legally, but worthy of an emperor who gets to pick and choose favorites, and an attractive sound byte in an election year.

Meanwhile, the Justice Department ruthlessly pursues the little whistleblower Bradley Manning, who exposed the inanity of the State Department through thousands of diplomatic cables passed on to Wikileaks. Further along the same spider’s thread, the Justice Department also ruthlessly pursues intelligence genius Julian Assange, the most innovative publisher of our time.

God knows what’ll happen to Manning and Assange. God knows what’ll happen to the rest of us if the best minds and hearts of their generation get locked away, while the smug idiots running the war machines are held up as model Americans.

Members of Iceland’s parliament have nominated Bradley for the Nobel Peace Prize. I’m very proud of my son, and Iceland.

The video above is a mini-documentary on the life and hard times of my son, narrated in a lovely lilting Irish or possibly Welsh accent. Bradley’s biological mother is Welsh.